Minnesota Report
This week we have been a little remiss, and not provided our Monday offering of bill introductions. For context, we thought it to be worthy to look at the two past regular legislative sessions and the number bill introductions not accounting for the mandated Special Sessions. In 92nd biennial legislative session or 2021-22 there were 4905 House bills and in the 91st biennial legislative session or 2019-20, 4695 bills were introduced. In the Senate, there were 4610 introduced in 2021-22 and 4639 introduced in 2019-20. Of those only 99 became law in the 92nd session, and 118 in the 91st in the session.
In the current or 93rd biennial legislative session 2678 have been introduced in the House and 2752 Senate. Of those, only 13 have been signed into law. In both bodies, these numbers exceed the first year of the two preceding biennial sessions. We understand from the House Revisor’s staff, they are swamped and many more are forthcoming. We spoke with a lobbyist who was carrying around some legislative jackets and asked if he was concerned to be doing so still in the week of the first deadline and he said, “Deadlines don’t matter.”
The most voluminous bill authors in the Senate are, the new leader Sen John Hoffman (DFL-34, Champlin) with 101, Sen Mary Kunesh (DFL-39, New Brighton) falls to 2nd with 97, and Sen Kelly Morrison (DFL-45, Wayzata) enters the field with a respectable showing of 91 introductions.
In the House, continues to set the pace with Rep Duane Quam (R-24A, Bryon) with 66, new entrant Rep John Huot ((DFL-56B, Rosemount) captures 2nd with 53, and Reps Rick Hansen (DFL-53B, South St Paul) and Rep Dave Lislegard (DFL-07B, Aurora ) are on equal footing with 52.